Search results for: prayer of the frog

It’s no good having our prayers answered If they are not answered at the right time:

In ancient India much store was set by the Vedic rites which were said to be so scientific in their application that when the sages prayed for rain there was never any drought. It is thus that a man set himself to pray, according to these rites, to the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, begging her to make him rich.

He prayed to no effect for ten long years, after which period of time, he suddenly saw the illusory nature of wealth and adopted the life of a renunciate in the Himalayas.

He was sitting in meditation one day when he opened his eyes and saw before him an extraordinarily beautiful woman, all bright and shining as if she were made of gold.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I am the goddess Lakshmi to whom you recited hymns for twelve years,” said the woman. “I have appeared to grant you your desire.”

“Ah, my dear goddess,” exclaimed the man, “I have since attained the bliss of meditation and lost my desire for wealth. You come too late. Tell me, why did you delay so long in coming?”

“To tell you the truth,” said the goddess, “Given the nature of those rites you so faithfully performed you had fully earned the wealth. But, in my love for you and my desire for your welfare, I held it back.”

If you had the choice, which would you choose: the granting of your petition or the grace to be peaceful whether it is granted or not?

It took a lot of time for me to title this blog. Do not confuse the words on right and word on left of the hyphen. Read the story and understand the title 🙂

One day Mulla Nasruddin saw the village schoolmaster leading a group of children towards the mosque.

“What are you taking them there for?” he asked.

“There is a drought in the land,” said the teacher, “and we trust that the cries of the innocent will move the heart of the Almighty.”

“It isn’t the cries, whether innocent or criminal, that count,” said the Mulla, “but wisdom and awareness.”

“How dare you make such a blasphemous statement in the presence of these children!” cried the teacher.

“Prove what you have said, or you shall be denounced as a heretic.”

“Easy enough,” said Nasruddin. “If the prayers of children counted for anything there wouldn’t be a school teacher in all the land, for there is nothing they so detest as going to school. The reason you have sur­vived those prayers is that we, who know better than the children, have kept you where you are?”

It was winter of 2012, Sujoy was getting married. I traveled to Pune to attend his wedding function. There I met one of my very old College mate – Anurag Tambe.

Anurag is smart guy, thoughtful and practical. We discussed many things, including my favorite topic – purpose of what we do? This topic eventually boils down to spirituality. Anurag told me about Steve Jobs and what his experience was about India and spirituality. His visit to India made him go back to the US and keep doing his work as good as he could. [Anurag’s reference to the book on Steve Jobs]

A cobbler met a Rabbi and said. “Tell me what to do about my morning prayer. My custo­mers are poor men who have only one pair of shoes. I pick up their shoes late in the evening and work on them most of the night; at dawn there is still work to be done if the men are to have their shoes ready before they go to work. Now my ques­tion is: What should I do about my morning prayer?”

“What have you been doing till now?” the Rabbi asked.

“Sometimes I rush through the prayer quickly and get back to my work—but then I feet bad about it At other times I let the hour of prayer go by Then too I feel a sense of loss and every now and then, as f raise my hammer from the shoes, I can almost hear my heart sigh. “What an unlucky man I am that I am not able to make my morning prayer.”

Said the Rabbi. “If I were God I would value that more than the prayer.”

I have been reading one or the other story of Father Anthony De Mello’s books – The Prayer Of The Frog Vol. I and Prayer of The Frog Vol. II. The books have interesting stories, many a times half page. One of the story I read was on a seeker going to a master’s abode. I’m tweaking this story (I would want to claim the copyrights!), here it is –

At the master’s door

A spiritual seeker was almost at the door of one of the masters. Sensing the abode as the best place to find his prey, a devil made his permanent residence there. When the devil saw the seeker enter the house of the Master, devil determined to do everything in his power to turn him back from his quest for Truth.

The devil tried giving this seeker all the possible temptations. His list of temptations included every possible means – women, wealth, fame, power and prestige even wisdom (perhaps false sense of it). However, our protagonist was too committed a seeker. He fought all these baits and stood his ground.

The devil was almost lost, he was about to let go of the seeker. Suddenly, an idea cropped up in the mind of the devil. He tried it. The devil said – I shall give you all spiritual knowledge you seek, come with me!

This time our protagonist could not resist his temptation – he followed the devil.

—

Now if you understood the story and the BOLD copyright part (of mine above), you may laugh at it! You may learn few lessons – including me claiming ownership of the story. However, I know “You only lose what you cling to“.

As usual, this story again comes from – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J. The book has small stories and worth reading one at a time, sleep over the story and think what we can improve in our life?

A man took his new hunting dog out on a trial hunt. He shot a duck that fell into the lake. The dog walked over the water, picked the duck up and brought it to his master.

The man was flabbergasted! He shot another duck. Once again, while he rubbed his eyes in disbelief, the dog walked over the water and retrieved the duck.

Hardly daring to believe what he had seen, he called his neighbor for a shoot the following day. Once again, each time he or his neighbor hit a bird the dog would walk over the water and bring the bird in. The man said nothing. Neither did his neighbor. Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he blurted out, “Did you notice anything strange about that dog?”
The neighbor rubbed his chin pensively. “Yes,” he finally said. “Come to think of it, I did! The son of a **** can’t swim!”

It isn’t as if life is not full of miracles. It’s more than that: it is miraculous, and anyone who stops taking it for granted will see it at once.

At times I think the life itself is a miracle, we take it for granted. Naxals are killing, Terrorist are killing, in fact people are dying on pilgrimages to add to the trouble people are leaving ethics and morals to earn few bucks here and there (eventually we would leave everything here). I wonder if they would realize some time – life is a miracle live it, don’t kill anyone and be peaceful with what you have.

This story is from a book – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J. This book has very interesting stories on religion, spirituality and human relations etc. The story precisely explains how we – Indians – think and act.

…

A great festival was to be held in a village and each villager was asked to contribute by pouring a bottle of wine into a giant barrel.

When the banquet began and the barrel was tapped what came out of it was water. One of the villagers had had this thought: “If I pour a bottle of water in that giant barrel, no one will notice the difference.” But it hadn’t occurred to him that everyone else in the village might have the same thought.

…

This happens in Indian political system. Everyone thinks that yes there is corruption, but I am paid 100/- let me vote this corrupt politician. Others would not vote him… similar to the story above. Every poor person gets an incentive to cheat – that cheating is a responsibility of politician – development Vs one time benefit to voter – 100 rupee note or a quarter of alcohol etc.

The interesting part is we Indians more complex yet cheat always. We think in two fashion. 1. the way story suggests above and 2. why should I do it when everyone else is cheating?

Option two suggests that every Indian knows what others are going to do and thinks why should not I do the same?

Assume (as few may not believe in rebirth) that someone died as a Jew and born again as a Muslim. The soul has only did one thing – changed sides from one HATE group to the other. Remember Jews and Muslims have conflict in Palestine, I am not an expert on international politics so please do not take these statements as expert opinions – concentrate on the moral.

Please understand – I do not intended to hurt any particular religion or ideology, it was just a story which I read and liked the message – We have enough religion to hate but not enough to love.

—

Just to make my point, here is some related story. This is a story I read today (on my old blog account), liked it so here is the story as a blog. The story is from a book titled “The Prayer of the Frog” volume I, By Father Anthony de Mello publisher Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Post Box 70, Anand-388 001. India.

We really have so many Beliefs to hate or create identity but rear for love – ‘unconditional love’, or sometime Humanity. We have a lot of things (and religions) – shouldn’t we have little Humanity in us!

The dog and the fox

A hunter sent his dog after something that moved behind the trees. It chased out a fox and corralled it into a position where the hunter could shoot it.

The dying fox said to the hound “were you never told that the fox is brother to the dog?”

“I was, indeed,” said the dog. “But that’s for idealists and fools. For the practical-minded, brotherhood is created by identity of interest.”

Said the Christian to the Buddhist: “We could be brothers, really. But that’s for idealists and fools. For the practical-minded, brotherhood is created by identity of beliefs.”

Most people, alas, have enough religion to hate but not enough to love.

I used to blog in 2006 also. This blog is from that blog post. Though I did not continue blogging there (at that time the interface was not that evolved for me).

A group of tourists, stranded somewhere in the countryside, were given old rations to eat. Before eating the food they tested it by throwing some of it to a dog who seemed to enjoy it and suggered no after effect.

The following day they learnt that the dog had died. Everyone was panic-stricken. Many began to vomit and complained of fever and dysentery. A doctor was called in to treat the victims for food poisoning.

The doctor began by asking what had happened to the body of the dog. Enquiries were made. A neighbour said casually, “Oh, it was thrown in a ditch because it got run over by a car.”

I wrote earlier about the business of religion, recently found an interesting story on the same and thought to share it here. This story is from a book – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J.. This book has very interesting stories on religion, spirituality and human relations etc. The story I am referring here is from ‘The prayer of the Frog – Volume 1, Page 95, Part – Religion

The resurrected philosopher
An ancient philosopher, dead for many centuries, was told that his teachings were being misrepresented by his representatives. Being a compassionate and truth-loving individual, he managed, after much effort, to get the grace to come back to earth for a few days.

It took him several days to convince his successors of his identity. Once that was established, they promptly lost all interest in what he had to say and begged him to disclose to them the secret of coming back to life from the grave.

It was only after considerable exertion that he finally convinced them that there was no way he could impart this secret to them and that it was infinitely more important for the good of humanity that they restore his teaching to its original purity.

A futile task! What they said to him was “Don’t you see that what is important is not what you taught but our interpretation of what you taught? After all, you are only a bird of passage whereas we reside here permanently.”

When the Buddha dies, the schools are born.
***
These small stories are so interesting that I would refer to them again in future.

When I say business to the Buddha, I mean teachings applied in real life (including Businesses) and not interpreted/misinterpreted by someone (priest) for the common public.

Follow Us on Twitter

Competition is good however, how good it is? Being a winner or part of winning team is fine, but when someone asks you about being "The Winner", should you consider being like that? Continue reading » The post I want to be the winner appeared first on Business to the Buddha.

Adviti is growing up, she has started turning and every now and then she turns. When feeding her, she turns … Continue reading » The post Adviti and perspective change appeared first on Business to the Buddha.

It was a pleasant evening of summer vacation in 1996. We were playing cricket as usual. We were about 15-16 boys … Continue reading » The post Work, games and spirituality appeared first on Business to the Buddha.

I was doing regular weekly followup at an Art of living center today morning. While breathing, I realized Something. Probably … Continue reading » The post Life is a celebration appeared first on Business to the Buddha.